Category Archives: Driving

A Paved Road

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Road closed due to water damage

Can't go that way

One thing I appreciate is a paved road. Here’s how our road looked on February 13, 2012. A few days later, they put in four new culverts, but the top of the culverts was unpaved. In no time at all, some of the dirt on top of the culverts eroded, leaving big potholes all across the road. Some drivers slowed down to cross the culverts, some did not. (I did.)

A newly paved road

All dressed up in black!

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Yesterday, they paved over the culverts.

I don’t know who “they” are, but I’m thanking all the “theys” out there who provide services!

Water Over Road

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Road sign: Watch for water on road

Looks like the word "water" was added on after the sign was printed

I thought this sign was funny. We’re in a zillion-year drought and this sign sits on the side of the road, rain-free day after rain-free day. I had a draft blog post in my mind, already. I was going to write something along the lines of “the only way I would see water on this road is if someone dumped their water jug on it and I happened by before it evaporated.” Oh, yes, it was going to be funny.

Water flowing over driveway

My driveway is under there, somewhere

Three days after I took that photo, it rained. We got 7.36 inches in about 5 hours. I couldn’t get a photo of that sign with water over the road because I couldn’t get out to drive there. In that 5-hour downpour, our ponds went from bone dry to overflowing. My driveway was under water — flowing water — and I wasn’t about to risk having my vehicle get swept away. How embarrassing that would have been to explain to a tow truck driver that I needed my turned-on-its-side vehicle extracted from a mud pile a few yards away from my driveway. Instead, I waited four hours after the rain stopped before deciding the water level was low enough and that it was flowing slow enough for me to drive across safely.

Road closed due to water damage

So close, yet so far

That rain also eroded the sides of the culvert that was under the road, some yards from the end of our driveway. The county workers came and blocked off the road. I figured this out just as they were removing the barriers from their trucks and putting them across the road. I was about 25 yards from my driveway, but I couldn’t get there from where I was. I turned around and took the back way in, adding about three miles to my route.

With the road blocked, I had to leave a few minutes earlier in the mornings in order to take the back way to get to work. The county replaced the two old culverts with four new ones and opened the road late Friday afternoon. That was nice.

Suggestion To Other People

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The sign Suggestion To Other People can be seen everywhere in its abbreviated form. To some, that’s all it is, a suggestion. For me, it’s a STOP sign.

There are two STOP signs on my drive to work that are particularly notable in this double standard. I stop at them, others do not. I discovered this by working out the problem of some drivers tailgating me up to the first STOP sign. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just use the left lane while I’m in the right lane.

My attempts at relaying this message to them by ESP never worked. One morning I decided that I would get in the left lane when someone was tailgating me up to the STOP sign. I’d let them go about their morning drive at their own (illegal) speed in the right lane and after they passed me, I’d return to the right lane and go about my morning drive at my own (legal) speed.

It wasn’t long before I had the chance to use my new plan. And it worked, but not in the manner I imagined. I moved over to the left lane and the other driver just kept going, through both STOP signs. I stopped; they didn’t even slow down.

Oh. STOP means stop for me, but it’s just a Suggestion To Other People.

Good to know.

Mobile Phone

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I have a cell phone, as does hubby and about a few other billion people on this planet. Hubby also has a mobile phone.

It’s his pickup. Not in his pick-up — his pickup is the mobile phone, on wheels. He can say “Call home” and it does. A call comes in to his cell phone and it rings through his pickup. He answers and talks just by the press of a button.

I lust after his mobile phone.

What I want the mobile phone on wheels for is to call into radio talk shows on my drive into the office. Not to give an opinion on their topic of the hour, no. What I want to do is tape their call-in numbers to the dashboard so I can call and talk to their traffic reporters.

I am sometimes dismayed to hear a “good-to-go” report while I am sitting in stop-and-go traffic on the Interstate. By the time I inch forward enough to discover the bottleneck, the tow truck is there, the firefighters are cleaning up, the police are directing traffic. The drivers of the two vehicles involved in the accident are joking with each other and exchanging mailing addresses for Christmas cards; that’s how long they’ve been there.

I want to call the radio stations and help them with their traffic reports. I’ll do it for free, even, just as soon as I get my own mobile phone on wheels.